


Because It's Him

by SasuNarufan13



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Doesn't follow epilogue, Drama, Dual pov: Gaara's and Sasuke's, Established slash, M/M, Past Character Death, Sequel to And We Keep Going Like This, Use of Deva Path
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:34:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24683155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SasuNarufan13/pseuds/SasuNarufan13
Summary: He knows he should force Uchiha to put an end to this jutsu, to finally let Naruto rest in peace. But it's difficult. Precisely because it's Naruto.
Relationships: Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 36
Kudos: 229





	Because It's Him

**Author's Note:**

> Author's note: A small break from the fantasy themed fics - for now at least :P Because make no mistake, I've still got several more fantasy themed ones planned LOL
> 
> This is the sequel to "And We Keep Going like This" and if you haven't read that one yet, I suggest you do that first, as it will be a bit confusing otherwise.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Kishimoto owns it.
> 
> I hope you'll like this!

**Because It's Him**

"You think you're going to be okay on your own for a little while?" Temari asked; her hand resting on her large fan. It was still folded up for the moment, but she kept a hand on it nonetheless.

He blinked slowly, staring at her blankly. "I'm waiting right in front of the Hokage's office. I think I'll be fine," he replied flatly. "Go see what all the ruckus is about."

"Don't get kidnapped or attacked," Kankuro advised him lightly before following their sister out of the corridor.

Gaara crossed his arms and remained standing near the door of the Hokage's office, prepared to wait for a bit. Kakashi had sent him a message four days ago, wanting to discuss a group of rogue shinobi who were attacking anyone travelling between Suna and Konoha. Konoha shinobi hadn't been able to find their hideout yet, so Kakashi had decided to call in Suna's help.

The Suna delegation hadn't encountered anyone of the group on their way through the forest, but that could have something to do with the fact that the group so far seemed to only target lonely travellers or groups of two people at most. Gaara supposed he would receive more information about them during his meeting with Kakashi.

He wasn't aware that the door had been left slightly ajar until Haruno's loud voice startled him.

"You can't just leave him there! Naruto doesn't deserve that!"

Gaara froze, green eyes widening as he stared at the cracked open door. _Naruto?_ Heart pounding, he took a step closer to the room. Why were they talking about Naruto in the present tense? Naruto had died three years; what was going on here? How could she be talking about him like he was still alive?

Had Konoha lied about their Jinchuuriki's death? Ice settled deep in the pit of his stomach. Had they orchestrated his death for some secret mission? No, that couldn't be … Konoha wouldn't lie about something like that – at least not to Suna, their oldest ally. The grief on Kakashi's and Haruno's faces had been real back then – it wasn't possible that Konoha had deceived everyone.

But that still didn't explain what he had just heard.

"Who knows what he's planning to do with him?" Haruno's voice was edging into hysteria now. "We've seen what Pein could do – how can you just sit there and not do anything to help Naruto?"

Pein? What did the dead leader of Akatsuki have to do with Naruto?

Before he could think twice about it, he strode towards the door and pushed it open, revealing his presence to the two shocked occupants in the room.

Glancing coolly at them, Gaara asked flatly, "What's this about Naruto? Why are you talking about him like he's still alive?"

Haruno instantly flushed a bright red, which clashed rather horribly with her pink hair. She was still dressed in her hospital uniform; her hands clenching the fabric tightly. Kakashi was seated behind his desk, sans hat, looking incredibly weary.

"Close the door, please," he muttered, rubbing a hand over his face. "Where are Kankuro and Temari?"

"Checking out some ruckus going on a floor below us," Gaara answered flatly. Some sand left his gourd and closed the door behind.

He stepped forwards until just a couple of feet separated him from the Hokage and crossed his arms, ignoring Haruno, who looked close to tears.

"Did Konoha lie about Naruto's death?" he questioned icily; his sand swirling lazily behind him. He didn't believe they had, but if they had been lying all along … Not even Naruto materialising in front of him would be able to convince him to hold back.

He'd grieved for months, mourning the loss of the only friend he'd ever made. To think that all his sorrow might have been for nothing if Konoha had lied …

_He'd be furious._

"We didn't lie," Kakashi replied and if possible he sounded even more exhausted than he appeared. "There would be nothing for us to gain if we lied about that."

"Kaka-sensei," Haruno urged, but the man ignored her.

"Why don't you take a seat?" he offered Gaara instead, waving at the chair in front of his desk.

"I'd rather stand."

"Be my guest," Kakashi muttered and dragged his hands down his face, nearly upsetting his mask.

The uncharacteristic gesture had Gaara frowning. "Kakashi, what's going on here?"

"Might as well inform you given how close he lives to Suna's border," Kakashi said wearily. "We've received intel this morning that Sasuke is not living alone as we previously thought he was. Instead one of the villagers here, who was visiting Suna, noticed him visiting a shop with someone else. That someone else turned out to be Naruto." His eyes deepened; a frown cleaving his forehead in two.

"Naruto's dead," Gaara said flatly. "You sure he didn't just turn one of his clones into Naruto?"

He'd lost track of where the last Uchiha heir was staying after Naruto had been buried. Back then he remembered thinking how awful it must be for Uchiha to lose the only bond he still had left in this world. He could still remember how pale and motionless Uchiha had looked like when they had all gone to pay their respects to Naruto. He'd stood all the way to the back and everyone had ignored him, seeing past him as if he'd been a ghost, as if he had died like Naruto had.

Gaara had been the only one to go up to him to express his sorrow for his loss.

He didn't know Uchiha had settled down so close to Suna's border. He'd assumed he'd gone back to travelling the world like he'd done before, now that nothing had been tethering him to Konoha anymore.

"They were both wearing cloaks, but the woman managed to catch a glimpse of their faces," Kakashi continued and he looked worryingly pale when he continued, "Gaara, Sasuke has used the Deva Path to bring Naruto back. Just like Pein did with his team."

_The Deva Path._

Gaara didn't know much about the Rinnegan Pein had been able to use when he'd still been alive, but he had read up on it after the attack on Konoha. The Deva Path was one of its abilities, allowing the owner of the Rinnegan to bring back someone from the dead.

The scrolls had been vague about the process, most likely because not much was known about the Rinnegan, but the information had made it sound like the people brought back were basically puppets, filled with the Rinnegan user's will for them to live. They acted like they were programmed to do by the Rinnegan user. Alive and yet not alive either.

And Uchiha had done that to Naruto. He'd brought the Jinchuuriki back from the dead by using the Rinnegan he'd acquired during the war. When had he done that? How long had he been keeping an animated Naruto with him?

To think they were so close by this entire time …

"How many people know about this?" he questioned, but he already knew it couldn't be a lot.

There was no way people would just stand by idle when Uchiha had brought back someone from the dead that they had considered a war hero.

"I was informed about it by the woman herself and Sakura happened to be nearby," Kakashi answered and Haruno shuffled with her feet, biting her lower lip while she embraced herself. "I asked the woman to keep quiet about this while I'll handle it."

"And you think she'll keep her silence?" Gaara asked sceptically.

"I trust her," Kakashi answered simply.

"So what's the plan now?" the red haired man inquired, frowning slightly. "Are you going to do something about this?"

"Of course we are!" Haruno burst out, her eyes flashing in ire. "There's no way Sasuke-kun can get away with - "

"Sakura." Kakashi's sharp voice had her quietening down immediately, scowling down at the floor. The older man turned back to Gaara and sighed. "I was thinking about confronting Sasuke about this, yes. I know he's grieving, but this isn't the right way to go about it. I should have pushed him to stay here." His face darkened slightly.

"You think you can convince him to end the jutsu?" Gaara questioned and he really tried his best to hold back his scepticism, but to be honest he had little faith in Kakashi's abilities to sway Uchiha.

If he couldn't even convince him to remain in Konoha, how did he think he would be able to convince him to end the jutsu that would send Naruto back to his grave?

Something in his chest panged at that thought, but he ignored it.

"Honestly? I don't know," Kakashi said wearily. "He's never been good at listening to his elders and I'd rather not get into a fight with him about this. This can't continue, though. Naruto deserves to rest in peace, not be brought back by a jutsu."

"I'll go talk to him," Haruno said determinedly, but Kakashi shook his head.

"Given what happened last time you went there, I wouldn't risk it. I'm not sure what exactly Sasuke's mind space is right now, but Sakura, I wouldn't try to test your luck too much with him," he said quietly and she flinched, looking away, appearing very close on the verge of crying.

"I could talk to him," Gaara offered and blinked, just as taken aback by his offer as the other two were.

"You'd talk to him?" Kakashi repeated dubiously, frowning hard. "I'm not sure whether that would be a good idea. You two never got along, did you?"

The Kazekage shrugged. "I don't hate him. I just didn't like the risk he posed in the past." Nor what his behaviour had been doing to Naruto, but he wasn't going to admit that.

"Well …" Kakashi hesitated, visibly struggling whether to accept the offer or not. "Perhaps it would be better if you went to talk to him. You're more of a neutral party than I am or Sakura is. Convince him to stop the jutsu. Because if he doesn't, I'm afraid we'll have to take more extreme measures."

He grimaced, rubbing over his forehead this time. "I don't want to have to take it that far, but I can't let him get away with using the Deva Path either. Especially not when the person he's using it on is Naruto." His eyes darkened momentarily with old grief.

"I'll talk to him," Gaara promised, his sand swirling slowly around his feet.

He hoped that the Uchiha heir had become more open to a discussion than the last time Gaara had tried to convince him to abandon the path he'd been walking on at that time. The last thing anyone of them needed right now was another full blown war because Uchiha refused to listen.

* * *

It irked him that he had never realised how close Uchiha had settled down to the Suna border. Probably in an effort to avoid detection by Konoha, but Gaara still thought he should have realised sooner where Uchiha lived.

He was making his way to Uchiha's place alone. Temari and Kankuro had no idea what he was going to confront Uchiha about, only that he was going to talk with the Sharingan user. They had insisted on joining him at first, not trusting the meeting to remain non-violent, but he'd eventually managed to convince them to stay behind, citing that Suna still needed people in charge in case of an attack.

He very much doubted his village would be attacked in the couple of hours he was gone, but he didn't want his siblings to know about Uchiha and Naruto. Not yet anyway. He would decide after this meeting whether they would be told about the Jinchuuriki or not.

A peculiar jutsu activated when he set foot in a small clearing and he stilled when footsteps soon approached him from the right. Turning slightly in that direction, he watched Uchiha walk towards him, a heavy frown marring his face. He was wearing a white shirt and black trousers and had his hand resting on his katana.

"I didn't expect to see you here," Uchiha remarked, coming to a hold a couple of feet away from him. "Thought it was Sakura again." His eyes flashed when he uttered her name and a faint sneer pulled the corners of his mouth down.

"No, it was decided it wouldn't be in her best interest if she came to see you again," Gaara murmured, cataloguing the changes in Uchiha since he'd last seen him.

His hair was just a tad longer, though not by much, and one of his bangs covered the eye in which he bore the Rinnegan. His skin was slightly less pale, as if he'd been spending a significant amount of time in the sun for the last couple of months.

"If she knows what's good for her, she stays away from here for the rest of her life," Uchiha muttered darkly.

"She's your former team member," Gaara reminded him, but that earnt him a foul look in return.

"Yes, and she's also the reason Naruto died," Uchiha hissed; his hand tightening around his sword.

The red haired man pressed his lips together. He knew what had happened, having pried the details out of a very reluctant Kakashi a day after Naruto's funeral.

Naruto and Haruno had been sent undercover to a town somewhere at the edge of the Land of the Mist. There Haruno had naively got mixed in with some group of criminals and when it had ended up in a blown out fight between Naruto and the gang, she hadn't known who to believe at first.

That initial hesitance had proved to be fatal: when one of the criminals had launched an attack at Haruno, Naruto had jumped between them. The sword had been shoved straight through his chest, piercing his heart. The Kyuubi had tried all he could to save his vessel, but it seemed that what Madara hadn't managed, that criminal had: the injury had been too severe and Naruto had bled out, but not before taking two criminals down with him.

While Haruno hadn't delivered the final blow, she had been partly the reason why Naruto had ended up dying in that battle. If she had only listened to him, had waited for more enforcement to arrive, hadn't gone out to confront the gang on her own, then perhaps Naruto would still be alive today.

She didn't do any missions anymore. From what Gaara had heard, she was now devoting all her time to work in the hospital.

"Except that Naruto isn't really dead anymore, is he?" Gaara remarked quietly and his sand instantly smashed together to create half a shield around him when Uchiha gnashed his teeth together and whipped his katana at him.

The sword started glowing, crackling with the Chidori it was infusing with, and Gaara knew he only had a couple of seconds to defuse this situation before it would completely erupt into violence.

"I just want to talk with you. Can we do that?" Gaara said and while his sand still formed half a shield, covering him like a bubble, he raised his hands as a gesture of peace. "I'm not here to fight with you, Uchiha. I just want to know what you were thinking."

"How do you know?" Uchiha demanded, his katana still glowing brightly. His visible eye was spinning, black changing into red, forming the Mangekyou Sharingan.

He was serious then, if he was already forming that stage of the Sharingan.

"From the Hokage. Apparently someone of Konoha was visiting Suna and caught a glimpse of you both," Gaara replied, shifting his stance minuscule. He didn't want to fight the other man, but he would if he didn't stand down soon.

Uchiha growled in frustration, but his katana stopped crackling. "I told that idiot he wasn't covering his face well enough," he muttered annoyed, running a hand through his hair. "But of course he didn't want to believe me!"

"I want to talk," Gaara repeated, his sand slowly slipping back into the gourd now that there was no immediate danger present.

Uchiha glared at him, but jerked his head down. "Fine, but we're going to talk inside the house."

"Fine by me," Gaara murmured, but his heart started beating quicker as he realised that he was going to see Naruto soon.

A reanimated Naruto, not the real living one, but …

He hadn't seen him since he'd paid his respects; it had been even longer since he last saw him alive.

How was he going to look like? Would it be obvious that he was a reanimated corpse? Would it be the old Naruto greeting him, or would it be obvious that Uchiha's Deva Path was controlling him?

Both men were silent as they walked out of the clearing, following a small worn out path through the trees. They passed a small stream, in which Gaara could see a couple of small fish flitting past, disappearing between the smooth rocks. Autumn was slowly approaching and already some leaves started to look brown, one of them breaking off its branch and softly floating down to the ground as the Kazekage watched.

They couldn't have been walking for more than ten minutes when a cottage came into view; its roof mainly covered by the branches of the adjoining trees. Some sort of small path had been paved with flat, grey stones, leading all the way up to the front door. There were clothes hanging on the line to dry, a mishmash of dark and bright colours, including a bright orange T-shirt.

Uchiha opened the door, calling out, "Naruto, someone came to visit."

"Oh?" a painfully familiar voice yelled back from somewhere deeper in the cottage. "Who?"

And then there he was, walking into the entrance hall, a glass of milk held in his right hand. Still the same bright blond hair in disarray, falling loose down his forehead now that there was no longer a headband holding it back. Still the same whisker like marks crinkling when the man grinned widely, his eyes nearly squinting shut in a parody of a smiling fox.

But instead of glittering blue eyes, one Rinnegan and one Sharingan met his green eyes, lightening up at the sight of him.

"Gaara! Oh my god, I never expected to see you here!" Naruto crowed, putting down his glass on one of the stairsteps, ignoring Uchiha's sighed "Don't put it there, you idiot", before quickly crossing the distance between them, clasping his arms around Gaara in a familiar tight hug.

And all Gaara could do was stand there dazed, inhaling Naruto's familiar scent, feeling his familiar warm hug pressing their bodies together, thinking that nothing had changed, yet _knowing_ that it had and that was the confusing part of it all.

Because he knew that this wasn't really Naruto, that this was just his body being reanimated by the Deva Path, and yet all his actions were so _Naruto_ , down to the too tight hug and the incessant rambling in his ear about how he had missed Gaara, how they really should meet up more now that he knew where they lived, _hey, maybe you could come visit us every month from now on? I know you're busy as a Kage, but everyone needs some time away from all that paperwork, right?_

It was as if Naruto had never left them, as if he'd just moved out of Konoha and into his cottage, and that thought had a lump forming in his throat and he embraced Naruto tighter than he had ever done before, not daring to believe that he was actually holding the other man right now, that this was his friend standing right in front of him, patting his back and chuckling about "Man, you must have really missed me to hug me this hard. Sasuke, I told you we should make more of an effort to visit our friends!"

Uchiha just _hn_ 'd but didn't put a halt to the embrace. Gaara could feel his eyes on them, though, and when he looked next to him, he met Uchiha's steady gaze. The gaze of a man who knew he'd done something unforgivable, but wasn't willing to back down either.

And now that he had Naruto grinning in front of him, a sight he'd resigned himself to never seeing again, it was suddenly becoming a lot harder to convince himself that the jutsu needed to be lifted.

_Damn Uchiha._

* * *

"When did you do it?" Gaara asked quietly, later on when he and Uchiha were sitting in the living room.

Naruto was humming in the kitchen, preparing an early dinner for the three of them.

"What, not asking why I did it?" Uchiha asked dryly, but his eyes were sharp and his Sharingan had yet to disappear.

Gaara gave him a pointed look. "I can imagine why you did it," he said and he hadn't meant for his retort to come out so dryly.

He couldn't help it, though; only a truly blind person couldn't see what had been going on – what _was_ going on – between Uchiha and Naruto. He might not have been around the both of them that much, but he'd known early on that what was between Naruto and Uchiha wasn't simply a close friendship.

Uchiha snorted, pulling him out of his memories, and leant further back into the armchair, crossing his legs. "A week after the funeral," he answered clipped. "Waited until it was night and then brought him back."

"How much of the real Naruto is still there?" Gaara questioned, his eyes unwillingly drifting over to the kitchen, where a couple of pans could be heard being placed onto the stove.

"He's Naruto," Uchiha said shortly; his face closing off. "He didn't change."

"The Kyuubi?"

"As far as I can tell, there's at least some residue of the demon left in him." Uchiha rolled his eyes, looking pensively for a moment. "Not sure whether it's still enough to have him enter Kyuubi mode, but I frankly don't care. I'm not planning on dragging him into fights anyway." His face darkened almost subtly.

"How self-aware is he?" Gaara pressed on. Yes, that had been the old Naruto greeting him before, but for someone who knew him as well as Uchiha did, it wouldn't be difficult to integrate Naruto's mannerisms in his reanimated corps.

"Pretty self-aware," Uchiha confirmed and he sounded almost bored. "He doesn't remember dying, though, and that's probably for the best."

Glancing back at the kitchen, Gaara wondered whether he could trust Uchiha's answers. Nobody knew the Deva Path better than its users and none of them, not even Uchiha, seemed inclined to give up its secrets. Was Naruto truly self-aware for the most part? Was the body moving around in the kitchen really Naruto or was Uchiha just an exceptionally good puppet-master?

Did it matter in the end?

"He wants me to stop the jutsu," Uchiha stated, his face passive, but his hands balled into fists and his eyes glowed almost ominously.

"He and Haruno both want that, yes," Gaara admitted, seeing no reason to lie about it. "They would initially confront you about this, but I overheard them talking and offered to go in their place. I didn't think you would want a confrontation with them."

"You've always been a lot smarter than she is," Uchiha scoffed, but his eyes didn't lose their sharpness. "So, what's your brilliant plan? I don't think I need to tell you that I'm not planning on undoing the jutsu. I've got Naruto back and I'm not going to give him up again. Especially not for them." His lip curled up in an impressive sneer and if possible, his eyes darkened even further, a dangerous glint lurking in their depths.

"I'm not going to sugar coat and act like what you did was right," Gaara said flatly. "Because it isn't. Far from it. I don't know whether this is something Naruto would have even wanted to happen."

"He wants me happy," Uchiha shot back, his proverbial hackles raised in defence.

"That we can both agree on," Gaara murmured, listening to the blond man curse when he dropped something.

"Well, it seems we've reached an impasse then," the dark haired man smiled thinly. "You want me to undo the jutsu and I don't want to do that."

"The Hokage was talking about more extreme measures if you don't stop the jutsu," Gaara warned and leant forwards slightly, clasping his hands together. "They might be willing to fight you on this."

Uchiha bared his teeth. "They're welcome to try," he said coldly.

"Are you really willing to potentially lose your life over this?" Gaara asked, frowning slightly. "They're not willing to turn a blind eye to this, Uchiha. Not this time. In their eyes you've gone way too far now."

Uchiha leant forwards as well and his voice was intense when he replied, "Naruto _is_ my life. And I will fight anyone who wants to take him away from me until my last dying breath if I have to. I already lost him once, don't take him from me again."

His voice deepened even more, his eyes growing as dark as the pitch black sky on a moonless night, when he added, "Because if you do, not even Naruto will be able to stop me this time. I'll destroy this entire fucking world if that means I get to keep him with me."

How would it feel, Gaara wondered, to have someone so in love with you that they're willing to fight the entire world if that meant keeping you? That they go as far as flipping off death, if that meant you'd stay with them?

How did it feel to be so loved?

"They want proof that you undid the jutsu," Gaara said.

"They can wait the rest of their lives for that proof, because they won't get it," Uchiha hissed and dark purple chakra started leaking out of his pores, covering his body in a purple haze.

Staring straight into Sharingan and Rinnegan glowing eyes, Gaara murmured, "He's going to be the death of you."

"Perhaps," Uchiha allowed and his chakra slowly sank back in his body. "But I'll make sure to take down as many with me if it comes to that."

"You're beyond help," Gaara sighed softly.

Uchiha's smile was humourless, self-deprecating. "I know. I've made peace with that long ago." He stood up, looking inexplicably relaxed. "I appreciate the heads-up, but you can tell Kakashi that I'm not stopping this. No matter what he does."

Gaara watched him walk into the kitchen, heard him muttering something to Naruto, to which the blond man snickered in response, and decided there and then that he would put an end to this personally.

Before things could escalate for the worse.

* * *

"He really agreed to undo the jutsu?" Kakashi asked surprised, his eyes widening a tad.

"Not voluntarily," Gaara retorted. "You're best off staying away from him; I can't say he's too happy with you or the village in general."

"I hope he'll understand one day why using the Deva Path wasn't the right answer," Kakashi sighed, rubbing the back of his hand across his mouth. "We all miss Naruto deeply, but he has the right to rest."

"Are you sure he actually stopped the jutsu?" Haruno demanded, looking incredibly pale as she hovered in the corner of the Hokage's office. "He can say whatever he likes, but that doesn't mean he - "

"I watched the light die out in Naruto's eyes," Gaara answered blankly and she flinched, looking sick. "I saw him being lowered in his grave again. Yes, I'm sure he stopped the jutsu."

"I'm sorry for making you go through this, Gaara," Kakashi said softly.

"I offered," Gaara answered simply and they said their goodbyes.

There was nothing left to say anyway.

* * *

There was a secret doorway in the Kage's residency, hidden in the basement behind a rack of shelves. It led to an underground tunnel and that one in turn opened up to a secret garden with a small house, several miles away from the village and surrounded by heavy Warding jutsu.

It was a secret passed on from Kazekage to Kazekage; no one else, not even the people closest to the Kage, were aware of this hidden passageway.

Light drizzle greeted him when he left the tunnel, the sky painted a light orange and pink as the sun slowly set.

A dark haired man was waiting for him near the fountain, lowering his hood when he approached him.

"They believed you," Uchiha stated, his eyes gleaming with satisfaction.

"They did," Gaara confirmed. "As far as they're concerned, Naruto's back in his grave and you've disappeared, too furious to stay behind."

"You think they will check his grave?"

The Kazekage shrugged. "Not sure. If they do, my sand clone will convince them. They might be on the lookout for your chakra or his, but they're not going to suspect a sand clone."

They would never think that he'd been lying straight to their faces. Not about something like this.

He nodded at the other man. "As long as you'll stay here, you'll be safe. I think you can travel to some of the other countries as well once some time has passed, but in that case you'll have to be even more careful. They won't believe me a second time."

Uchiha snorted softly. "No, they're not that stupid, that's true."

"I'll be back within a week to bring you more provisions," Gaara promised, his sand creating a shield when the drizzle turned into a light bout of rain. He smiled. "I'll even bring ramen with me."

"The idiot's definitely going to appreciate that," Uchiha said dryly. "He's been whining about the lack of it for a couple of days now."

"Well, next week he can eat ramen again," Gaara chuckled and inclined his head in a now. "You have a good rest of the week, Uchiha."

"Yeah, you too," Uchiha said absently.

Gaara was almost in the tunnel again when Uchiha's voice drifted over to him, barely audible above the rain, "Thank you for helping us. For helping me."

Gaara turned his head to look at him. "You're welcome," he said and watched the other man walk away, back to the small house he was now sharing with Naruto.

Rationally he knew he should have put an actual end to this, should have forced Uchiha to let Naruto rest in peace, but …

He couldn't do it.

Because it was Naruto, the first and only friend he had ever made. The first person who had accepted him completely, flaws, bloody past and everything.

Because it was him, he couldn't bring himself to put a stop to this.

Perhaps he did know at least a bit how it felt like to love someone so much you're willing to go up against the whole world for them.

He and Uchiha were really alike.

* * *

The door closed behind him, cutting off the sound of the rain steadily drumming down on the ground.

Naruto popped his head out of the kitchen and smiled, watching him remove his cloak. "Glad you're back. Did the meeting between Gaara and Kaka-sensei go well?"

"It went very well," Sasuke confirmed and walked over to him. "He finally convinced the idiot to leave me the hell alone."

"Told you Gaara could help," Naruto grinned, drawing him in for a kiss.

He would never be able to gaze into beautiful blue eyes again, he knew, and he kissed Naruto deeper, swallowing his moan.

But that was okay.

Because he still had him and that was all that would ever matter.

**The End**

**Author's Note:**

> AN2: Promised the sequel a while ago and I finally delivered. My time management is as always impeccable *sweatdrops*
> 
> Please leave your thoughts behind in a review; should you spot any mistakes, please point them out to me.
> 
> I hope to see you all back in my future stories! Please stay safe and take care of yourselves!
> 
> Cuddles
> 
> Melissa


End file.
